Aquarium power consumption

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
This may sound stupid, but it sounds like you should run less efficient pumps. I use 2 Mag 18's from Danner / Supreme externally on my 240 acrylic. They are not very efficient. I keep my house around 70 in the winter and 76 - 78 in the summer. I don't need a heater!. In the winter my tank stays at 79 and in the summer I have a fan running over my sump trying to keep it below 86. They are not very expensive pumps so it might be worth getting an inefficient pump. I am building a 700 and bought Laguna 4200's (2) that are very efficient. I am going to heat it off of my gas hot water tank. That will have about an 18 month payback for me.
 
I live in FL so I don't heat my tanks but I did calculate the cost of running my tank before my 150gal only cost me like $5-8 a month to run... i am upgrading the filtration now and using a larger pump so I ll have to recalculate it but I doubt it will be going up by much
 
Sump is drilled and plumbed for an external pump, not going to swap over to internal, though that would help with some heating. My tank is glass vs. acrylic, so your acrylic tank has much better natural insulating properties (by about 20% from my reading).

Not sure where you got that I was complaining about my electricity price pigoo, I'm complaining that my single tank is eating up 40% of my total monthly energy bill.
 
Modest_Man said:
Sump is drilled and plumbed for an external pump, not going to swap over to internal, though that would help with some heating. My tank is glass vs. acrylic, so your acrylic tank has much better natural insulating properties (by about 20% from my reading).

Not sure where you got that I was complaining about my electricity price pigoo, I'm complaining that my single tank is eating up 40% of my total monthly energy bill.
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The point is that a 40% increase in my energy bill would be double what you paid. Many other members are in the same boat. My power bill is routinely about $400. I can't imagine having a $90 electric bill! lol

I see your point though. If my tank caused a 40% spike in my energy bill, I'd have no choice but to shut it down! :nilly:
 
Chicxulub said:
The point is that a 40% increase in my energy bill would be double what you paid. Many other members are in the same boat. My power bill is routinely about $400. I can't imagine having a $90 electric bill! lol

I see your point though. If my tank caused a 40% spike in my energy bill, I'd have no choice but to shut it down! :nilly:
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How many KWH did you use last month? How much do you pay per KWH? We used a total of 885 KWH for 33 days of service (320 of which was my tank). It's just my wife and I so we don't use all that much electricity.

I'm sure my usage is much more with the tank in the winter, as we heat using a pellet stove and over night the room with the tank gets down into the mid 50's.
 
Modest_Man said:
I can definitely insulate the bottom and back of the tank. Sides I can probably do as they're painted black, I've just got to use thinner polystyrene and paint it black. I can do parts of the top but not all due to the lighting and pothos growing out of the corners. We'll see how much that can drop my consumption.
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Did you try the calculator in the link I posted? It would be interesting to see how the real life savings compare to the estimated savings from that. I know the maths behind it is solid, but things don't always play out perfectly in the real world, can be hard to get a complete seal between the poly and the tank etc etc.
 
I don't really pay attention to the cost or try to figure it out, this way when the wife complains about the bill I have deniability .
 
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